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Advertiser Prominence Effects in Search Advertising

Author

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  • Przemys?aw Jeziorski

    (Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720)

  • Sridhar Moorthy

    (Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3E6, Canada)

Abstract

Search advertising is the ordered list of advertisements that appears when a user searches for something in an online search engine. By construction, these ads differ in prominence: ads higher up the list are more prominent than ads lower down the list. However, search ads also differ in prominence in another way: prominence of advertiser. This paper examines how these two types of prominence interact in determining the click-through rate (CTR) of these ads. Using individual-level click-stream data from Microsoft’s Live Search platform and measures of advertiser prominence from Alexa.com , we find that ad position and advertiser prominence are substitutes. Specifically, in searches for camera brands, a retailer not in the top 100 of Alexa rankings has a 30%–50% higher CTR in position 1 than in position 2, whereas a retailer in the top 100 of Alexa rankings has only a 0%–13% higher CTR for the same position improvement. Qualitatively similar results are obtained for several other search strings. These findings demonstrate, first, that advertiser brand matters even for search ads, and, second, the way it matters is the opposite of what is usually assumed in the theoretical literature on search advertising.

Suggested Citation

  • Przemys?aw Jeziorski & Sridhar Moorthy, 2018. "Advertiser Prominence Effects in Search Advertising," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 64(3), pages 1365-1383, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:64:y:2018:i:3:p:1365-1383
    DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2016.2677
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    4. Chalil, Tengku Munawar & Dahana, Wirawan Dony & Baumann, Chris, 2020. "How do search ads induce and accelerate conversion? The moderating role of transaction experience and organizational type," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 324-336.
    5. Rafael P. Greminger, 2022. "Heterogeneous Position Effects and the Power of Rankings," Papers 2210.16408, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2023.
    6. Dena Yadin & Inbal Yahav & Lior Zalmanson & Nira Munichor, 2024. "Resolving the Ethical Tension Between Creating a Civil Environment and Facilitating Free Expression Online: Comment Reordering as an Alternative to Comment Moderation," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 192(2), pages 261-283, June.
    7. Siddharth Bhattacharya & Jing Gong & Sunil Wattal, 2022. "Competitive Poaching in Search Advertising: Two Randomized Field Experiments," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 33(2), pages 599-619, June.
    8. Carsten D. Schultz, 2020. "The impact of ad positioning in search engine advertising: a multifaceted decision problem," Electronic Commerce Research, Springer, vol. 20(4), pages 945-968, December.
    9. Raluca M. Ursu, 2018. "The Power of Rankings: Quantifying the Effect of Rankings on Online Consumer Search and Purchase Decisions," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 37(4), pages 530-552, August.
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